


Six Feet Under

by Rawrbin



Series: SladeRobin Week 2020 [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Buried Alive, Groping, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rescue, Tight Spaces, Trapped, coffin, mentioned Slade/Dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27283585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rawrbin/pseuds/Rawrbin
Summary: "Where are we? I can't see-" the kid above him whines.Even as annoyed as he is, Slade doesn't actually want to antagonize the other man too much. They might be stuck here together for a while after all. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to derive a bit of sadistic pleasure from getting to inform Red Hood just exactly where he's managed to end them up."We're in a coffin." The kid's breath hitches and Slade feels his body stiffen."And based on the fact that the shoveling noises have stopped I'm going to guess we're approximately six feet underground.”-Written for SladeRobin Week 2020. Day 6: Trapped Together
Relationships: Jason Todd/Slade Wilson
Series: SladeRobin Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984852
Comments: 6
Kudos: 220
Collections: SladeRobin Week 2020





	Six Feet Under

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mid_Nightmare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mid_Nightmare/gifts).



> Thanks to everyone on the SladeRobin discord who helped me out with this fic and especially to mid_nightmare for giving me the idea of Slade and Jay being trapped in a coffin. ^_^

Shink…. Whump.

Shink…. Whump.

Shink…. Whump.

Slade groans. Overhead he hears another reverberating thump. Like something heavy is being dropped on the ground. Only the noise is coming from _above_ him. 

God his head hurts. He listens to the repetitive sounds for a moment as he fights to clear his mind. Drugged, he finally realizes. That's the only explanation for Slade Wilson getting a headache of this caliber. But where is he? And what is that _damn noise?_

It does seem to be getting softer at least. 

Slade lets out a small relieved sigh through his nose and tries to focus his mind. Everything comes back to him then in flashes. The job that was supposed to be a simple hit, taking out one drug kingpin at the (extremely well-paid) request of another. That was before Red Hood decided to go HAM on the operation, sending the warehouse into chaos and giving away Slade's location forcing him into the fray as well. He'd still gotten his target, he remembers that much. What he doesn't remember is anything beyond the sharp prick in his neck. 

The noise is becoming even more faded. 

Slade blinks his eyes open but he's met with only darkness. Even with his enhanced eyes he can't make out anything in the pitch black. It means he’s in a place with well and truly no light. That's never a good sign. 

A heavy weight lays on his chest, and his limbs feel leaden as well. Experimentally he tries to reach out, only to be met with hard walls on each side. He kicks his legs out too - same result. Slade's trapped in some kind of box, one barely large enough to contain him. 

He focuses his ears to try and make sense of the situation. The shink, whump noise has gotten even quieter. Further away. 

Shink. The sound of a shovel piercing into the ground. 

Whump. The thudding of the dirt as it's dropped down on top of him. 

He's trapped in a coffin. And from the sound of it it won't be long until he really is under six feet of solid ground. 

Not good. Slade may be a meta human but even he has limitations. Breaking out of a, from the feel of it, solid wooden coffin and digging his way through several feet of earth is going to border on impossible even for him. 

His limbs are still heavy from the drugs but he begins to fight in earnest, kicking his legs against the bottom of the box. From his cramped position he has zero leverage though, and there's zero give. 

The weight on his chest is still crushing, and as he rocks against the side of the coffin in a panic he hears a small groan. That's when he has a realization that he's embarrassed took him so long. He blames the drugs and the darkness. 

Slade isn't alone. 

The weight on top of him isn't the lingering effects of drugs or even the crushing weight of his mounting panic. There is another person laying on top of him, and he has one guess who it is. 

"Hood," he growls out, this time intentionally rocking up to jostle the other man. As far as Slade is concerned this is all his fault after all. If Red Hood hadn't jumped in with the world's worst timing Slade would have been in and out unnoticed. He can hear the man's head slam roughly against the top of the coffin with a sharp crack. There's really only an inch or two of give there apparently. 

"Ow, what the fucking hell."

Slade feels no sympathy. 

"Wake up. You've gotten us captured." 

"I can't - wha-?" 

Crack. 

That sounded painful. 

Slade is reminded very unpleasantly just how cramped a space they are trapped in as Hood tries to bring a hand to the place on his skull he's just cracked against the coffin lid for the second time in his confused flailing, elbowing Slade in the face in the process. 

"Stay still-" he grits out, trying to calm his temper at the other man as he feels blood trickle from his nose. 

"What's going on?" 

The kid's voice sounds disoriented. Slade isn't sure if that's from the drugs or the repeated head trauma. 

"It would seem we are trapped together. Thanks in no small part to you. So if you could stop your floundering and try to think of a way out of this…" 

Slade trails off. As annoyed as he is about Red Hood messing up his job, in hindsight he's not the worst person to be trapped with. The other Bats will certainly come looking for him after all, and Slade will get released in the process. Instead of a fierce struggle requiring strength and ingenuity, with Hood beside him escaping this prison has now transformed into nothing more than a waiting game. 

"Where are we? I can't see-" the kid above him whines. 

Even as annoyed as he is, Slade doesn't actually want to antagonize the other man too much. They might be stuck here together for a while after all. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to derive a bit of sadistic pleasure from getting to inform Red Hood just exactly where he's managed to end them up. 

"We're in a coffin." The kid's breath hitches and Slade feels his body stiffen on top of him. 

"And based on the fact that the shoveling noises have stopped I'm going to guess we're approximately six feet underground.” 

"NO!" 

Slade had expected a reaction. Some exasperation. Maybe some mild fear that Hood would try to cover with bravado and Slade could pick at. What he had not expected was to trigger the former Robin into a full blown panic attack. 

"No no no no no no, let me out. You can't leave me down here!" 

His voice is high-pitched and hysterical, sounding much more like the boy in green panties Slade had known years ago then the fearsome Red Hood who roams the streets of Gotham taking out drug lords. He flails frantically, slamming against the edges of the coffin with as much force as he can muster in the cramped space. Which isn't much. When his efforts bear no fruit he begins hyperventilating, continuing his screams between short staccato breaths. 

"No no no no no." 

"Kid, calm down!" Slade grinds out, but he's ignored. The panicked scrambling continues and this time Slade takes a boot to the shin and an elbow to the ribs in the kid's effort. 

"Enough!" He growls. Reaching up he wraps his arms around the large muscled body above him and pulls him in tight, holding him still and pinning the man's arms to his sides. 

"Relax" Slade commands him, and he doesn't let go. The kid puts up an effort for a bit but eventually tires out and goes still in Slade's arms. The sharp breaths don't dissipate though, instead evolving into short sobs caught on Slade's shoulder. The mercenary can feel the fabric of his uniform getting damp. 

"Let me out," he whimpers into Slade's shoulder, and it's the least Red Hood-like thing he has ever heard. 

"You're gonna be fine, kid. I'm sure the Bat's already out there looking for you." 

Slade isn't usually the type to coddle people, let alone try to comfort them, but then again he isn't usually trapped in such close confines to be at the mercy of other's issues. 

"No." Hood hiccups. "Bruce won't come. He never came. I waited. _I waited._ He didn't come. He's NOT COMING." 

The hyperventilating is back with a vengeance and Slade is starting to get a bit deeper insight into just what is "bothering" the Red Hood about this situation: This isn't his first time in this scenario. Slade doesn't know the details, but he's heard bits and pieces from Grayson. Jason Todd's death and mysterious return. He's never heard the part that came between his untimely demise at the Joker's hands and his fall into Talia's possession, but he thinks he's started to fill in some gaps. 

"You woke up in your coffin," he whispers. No response comes but one isn't really needed. The rough breathing and Todd's renewed efforts to free himself from Slade's grasp tell all. 

He'd woken up in his coffin, and the Bat hadn't known. How could he have? Slade can only imagine how the kid managed to escape. He's guessing it wasn't a valiant rescue on Talia's part. Probably something closer to what Slade had been imagining when he first realized where he was and thought he'd have to claw his way out. 

"This isn't like then," he tells the kid, pulling him in tighter in his grasp. One hand goes up to cradle the man's head in his shoulder, fingers petting idly at his hair. Grayson always tells him that it's calming. "They know you're missing. They'll find you."

The kid whimpers and sniffles into Slade's shoulder. The hair pets seem to be helping. 

"You got a tracker or something on you, kid?" Slade dares to ask once the kid’s shaking has reduced a bit. The Bats always have too many gadgets and secret backups for their own good, even the black sheep of the family. 

Sure enough he feels a nod against his shoulder. If only the kid had remembered such an obvious thing from the start this all could have been avoided. Then again in Slade's experience PTSD is rarely logical. 

"Alright. Where is it?" he prods. The kid is still clearly struggling. 

Another wet sniff. 

"Distress signal. In my belt buckle." 

Okay, that was more like it. The hand that was around Jason's back sneaks down between them. He can tell the kid is trying to cooperate, but his body is still trembling making it hard to keep himself lifted. Slade's hand has to fight its way through a tight path of hard abs to finally reach its destination. Thankfully it's easy to feel out the button hidden in the belt buckle, and he hears the soft ping of confirmation as he presses it. 

"They're on their way," he tells Jason. The man is still shaking but he's calmed down considerably. Slade feels him nod against him. The hand in his hair keeps petting softly. 

It's dark. And cramped. And silent aside from the soft sniffles that Red Hood's trying to hide in Slade's shoulder. 

And well. Slade gets bored. 

He's sure the Bats are on their way but aside from knowing they're _somewhere underground_ Slade doesn't actually know anything about their location. They might not even be in Gotham anymore. They may still be here for a while. 

Might as well make things interesting. 

"Hey!" 

Jason's whimpering is interrupted with a terse shout when he feels where the hand that had previously been holding tightly to his back has migrated to. Slade gives another squeeze, digging his fingers in deep. Jason practically jumps, crushing Slade’s hand against the lid of the coffin for a brief second. 

"Wha-" sniff, "what the hell do you think you're doing?" 

"Just getting a feel. If I've gotta be trapped in here with you I might as well get something out of it." 

Slade grins, but Jason can't see it in the darkness. 

"And just what the hell about this situation makes you think it gives you free reign to get grabby?" he growls out, and he _finally_ sounds like Red Hood again. "Besides, I thought you and Goldie were…" 

"Grayson and I are not exclusive, Todd." Slade informs him cooly and squeezes the firm cheek again. Jason squirms but he can't do anything to escape. He can't even reach to grab Slade's arm to try and stop him what with the way his own are confined in the coffin. "People claim he has the best ass out of all you vigilantes. I wanted to test if it was true or not." 

"You're a major asshole. You know that right?" Jason grits out as Slade continues smoothing a hand over the younger man's bottom. 

"And you finally stopped crying," he points out. 

Jason stiffens. 

"I wasn't crying," he grumbles. A gruff laugh escapes Slade's throat. 

"My wet shoulder begs to differ. It's practically dripping." 

"Shut up," Red Hood huffs. Then he seems to take his own advice because he falls silent, even as Slade lets his hand roam around a bit more. He feels up the top of a bulking thigh and skims back over the toned buttocks before settling his hand on the younger man's waist, under the shirt, pressing against bare skin. 

They sit in silence, Slade's other hand still raking through wavy black locks. It's oddly peaceful, considering the local, and stands in stark contrast to the wild panic that had filled the coffin earlier. 

"So…" Jason surprises Slade by murmuring out softly against his ear. "Was it true?" 

"Was what true?" Slade replies. He runs gentle fingertips up Jason's spine. 

"That Dickie boy's got the best ass." 

Slade huffs and a genuine grin breaks out across his face. 

"Well-" 

"HOOD! RED HOOD WHERE ARE YOU?" 

Speak of the devil. 

Nightwing's shouts ring out somewhere far above them. Directly above him Slade can feel Jason's body sag in relief. Directly _into his ear_ he hears Jason bellow in response. 

"I'M DOWN HERE GOLDIE! HURRY UP AND GET ME THE FUCK OUT." 

Shink…. Whump. Shink…. Whump. The sound of digging greets Slade's ears again. Only this time the layers of dirt are being shoveled off of them. 

As they wait for their rescue, still pressed together, Slade thinks a few layers may have been removed between him and Red Hood during this experience as well. 


End file.
